Due a large demand for our
Colombia trip we have had to shift things around a little. Roger will
now lead the January 2019 trip to Oman. He originally set up this trip
and has visited many times so is well placed, and very happy, to lead
tours to this wonderful destination. The dates remain the same.

The flight cost for Ethiopia has not risen and so
we have extended the early booking discount date for as long as we can
get the flights at the lower price.

We don't know how long this will be so we advise calling
us before you book. Flight prices usually rise as we get closer to
Christmas.

We also have one or two places left on our other 'winter
warmer tours'. You can see Leopards and endemics in Sri Lanka (above)
or Bellbirds and Quetzals in Panama (below). Both of these trips
have superb food and accommodation, as well as escaping the dark nights
and cold weather in the UK.

Once again, Birdfair was a fantastic
success for us, helped by the decent weather - not too hot, not too
cold... just right! Many thanks to everyone who came to see us, and also to
those who entered our free competition.

We asked you to count the number of
customers' hats worn or tossed in the air, on two photographs on our
display. The correct answer was 18, although it proved harder than we
expected. The winners this year
were:-

Friday - Mikey McGill from
Northampton

Saturday - Francesca Campanaro from
Bucks

Sunday - Catherine Bullen from
Norwich

Wire-crested Thorntail canvas prints
are winging their way to you as we speak.

Francesca Campanaro receives her prize at our
stand at the 2017 Rutland Birdfair.

Paul's daughter, Louise, draws the Sunday winner at this
year's Rutland Birdfair under the watchful eye of a Harpy Eagle!

Saturday 24th June 2017 saw the second Leeds Birdfair
held at Rodley Nature Reserve. Thank you to Linda Jenkinson
for all her hard work and organisation, and to the volunteers at Rodley
who have done an amazing job at the reserve and worked hard on the day
to make it a success.

We ran a prize draw for a free copy of the Collins
Bird Guide. The winner correctly identified Sri Lanka as the place
featured on the cover of our
2017 brochure.

The winner was Debbie Crosthwaite from Leeds.
Congratulations! A copy of the Collins Bird Guide will be winging its
way to you.

Roger shares a joke with a visitor to our
stand at the Leeds Birdfair.

Following
winter storms, the sand bars and mudflats at the Gulf of Martaban have
changed. This has meant that waders have had to find new roosting and
feeding locations; an entirely natural process.

The beach where we travel to see
Spoon-billed Sandpipers is now filled with Lesser Sand Plovers and
Kentish Plovers, but has reduced numbers of stints and sandpipers. Newly
created feeding areas has resulted in the place being less reliable for
locating Spoon-billed Sandpipers. The good news is that a survey this
winter found 50+ Spoonies out in the bay. The bad news is that they are
only reached by grounding a boat at low tide and even then it is likely
that one would have to camp on tidal sand bars for a few days to
guarantee seeing the birds. So for the time being, we have had to make
changes to our Myanmar tour itinerary. So for January 2018, we will not
be going south to Thaton and Sane Let Tin.

Instead, we will visit Hlawgar Park
near Yangon and continue to Moeyingyi as this is one of our favourite
sites, but then we will go north to Inle Lake and Kalaw. High on the
Shan Plateau, this superb wetland site, with high chances of seeing
Jerdon's Bushchat, is combined with superb birding the forests around
the old colonial hill station of Kalaw. So while we cant include
Spoonies for the foreseeable future, we can can ensure an bird-filled
trip to one a different part of the most ornithologically diverse
country in South East Asia.

For more information or details of our
new route, please contact our office.

There is still some availability on trips
in the first half of the year. Our trips to Georgia, Czech Republic,
Croatia and Transylvania are all guaranteed departures and we have
extended the discount date for all these trips to the end of March 2017.
Book before then to save hundreds of pounds.

The latest SbS newsletter has just been published. For
all the news about work done to save the species in 2016 click here

the newsletter includes news from the Russian breeding
grounds, news from Burma (Myanmar), collaboration projects between
Russian and Chinese organisations and some quirky artwork relating to
this iconic bird.

Please don't worry, we haven't changed our
business into a rare bird information service. We just couldn't help
sharing the news that our very own Lance Degnan, bird finder
extraordinaire, just found Britain's second ever Siberian
Accentor near Spurn Point. It was lucky 13th October for Lance, when he
was searching for migrants along a lane near the rather insalubrious
Easington Gas Terminal. Fortunately, regular Bird Holidays co-leader Ian
Smith lives just down the road, and was on hand to take some great
photographs of this little beauty. Coming hot on the heals of Britain's
first, on Shetland last week, this bird will be very popular, so you
might want to give Spurn a rather wide birth this coming weekend (or you
might want to join the queue to see it!).

Siberian Accentor at Easington, 13th October
2016 (Ian Smith).

The bird was watching feeding up after it's
long journey, unconcerned by the presence of a huge admiring crowd.

You can read Lance's account of his
discovery on Rare Bird Alert's website
here.

Saturday 27th June 2016 saw the first Leeds Birdfair
held at Rodley Nature Reserve. It true English fashion, we talked about
nothing but the weather in the run up to the event, but it turned out
beautiful and a great day was had by all. Thank you to Linda Jenkinson
for all her hard work and organisation, and to the volunteers at Rodley
who have done an amazing job at the reserve and worked hard on the day
to make it a success.

We ran a prize draw for a free copy of the Collins
Bird Guide. The winner correctly identified MADAGASCAR as the place
where the Collared Nightjar is found, as featured on the cover of our
2016 brochure.

The winner was Teresa Todd from Leeds.
Congratulations! A copy of the Collins Bird Guide will be winging its
way to you.

On his first Bird Holidays tour in
2013, Phil stayed on afterwards with a friend that works in
Yangon.

He was invited to a literary
festival where he met an interesting person at the hotel. Little
did he know that 2 hours later, he would see the same lady on a
podium speaking to the masses. It was Aung San Suu Kyi !!!

A big 'write-in' on his check-list, he was glad to
hear that she has just won recent elections and could become the next
president; the second president on his 'I've met them list'.

Aung San Suu Kyi's victory will usher in a new era,
that could see the country becoming much more open. While this is great
for the people, often wildlife suffer. With the last viable populations
of Gurney's Pitta and Spoon-billed Sandpiper, we hope that she values
Myanmar's natural wonders.

We have run 3 successful tours there and the birding
is excellent, although we cannot guarantee sightings of the 'next
President'.

Following a great trip to Bolivia, we have a new tour
coming up in 2017.

It will include Lake Titicaca home of the flightless
grebe, and where Phil met the Bolivian boat-builder that helped Thor
Heyerdahl make the Kon-Tiki from local reeds.

We will go to Tiwanaku, the city that spawned the Inca
empire that would expand, culminating in the better-known city of Machu
Picchu.

From Amazonian lowlands that include part of the
Pantanal, we will see macaws and oilbirds, before gently rising through
cloud forest and dry valleys with dippers and ground tyrants, to the
high lakes with condors and flamingos.

Our 2015 tour was a great success so there is the
possibility or us running two tours in 2016.

In addition, we will be making some slight changes to
the itinerary. In 2016, we will spend one extra day on Java where
birding in 2015 was incredible. We hope to visit an active volcano there
too. The downside, is that we will have one less night on
Flores, but that will mean less time travelling in a bus there. For more
information, chat to Phil in our office by calling 0113 3910510.

Ryanair now fly direct to Riga from
Manchester, saving time and money.

We would not normally use this budget
airline, but it is very convenient for those flying from the northwest.

So we will provide a discount for those
choosing to fly with Ryanair. Please call our office if you would
like this option.

In 2015, we saw a full set of woodpeckers,
Ural Owl, Bluethroat and even a Red-breasted Goose. We still have the
place to ourselves as the birdwatching crowds have yet to realise how
wonderful this country is. To see our the tour,
click here

After resting this tour for a couple of years we are
pleased to announce dates for September 2016. The spectacle of bird
migration through the Straits of Gibraltar is unsurpassed in Europe,
with thousands of Honey Buzzards, Black Kites, Booted Eagles and
Short-toed Eagles passing each season.
For details of our tour please click here.

Once again, Birdfair was a fantastic
success for us. It is always lovely to see a few familiar (we won't say
old) faces as well as getting to know people who we have only spoken to
on the phone. Many thanks to everyone who came to see us, and also to
those who entered our free competition.

The correct answer to where the
Collared Nightjar can be found was Madagascar. You didn't have to look
too far into our 2016 brochure to work that one out! The winners this
year were:-

Friday - Ewart Dawson from Skipton

Saturday - Ann Thomson from
Liverpool

Sunday - David Chaplin from York

Collared Nightjar canvas prints are
winging their way to you as we speak.

Our local guides have just sent us some great news from Andujar,
Spain !

Our friends have been working hard on a private estate to reverse
a declining rabbit population, the main prey for the endangered Iberian Lynx.

The reduction of rabbits led to many Lynx roaming further afield
to find food. This meant that in 2014, at least 22 were killed on the roads! Our
friends on the estate have managed to improve the site for rabbits, thus
maintaining enough food for the 7 adult Lynx there. This means that they do not
have to risk death in their search for food.

The even better news is that this June, their camera traps caught
the first pictures of a new addition on site. The photographs above and below is
of a male that has been seen regularly there this year.

This is the first camera trap picture to show the new arrival
with Mum.

Behind them is an earth mound where an artificial rabbit warren
was made to increase the number of rabbits. You can see that they are perfectly
happy to come out into the open during the daytime and the lynx are not shy
creatures here. Our tour contributes financially to the important work done here
to maintain the rabbit population and build more warrens.

This is a picture taken by a remote camera in June 2015 that
shows Mum on one of the trails that we will monitor during our tour in November.
Quite obviously out in the daytime searching for rabbits for her kitten

Khozikode, the return airport for this trip, has been closed with
no guaranteed reopening date. The runway is being upgraded but local people are
protesting vigorously and there is the threat of a legal dispute. Emirates have
withdrawn all flights out of Khozikode. Roger and the local guide have spent
ages trying to tweek the itinerary to compensate but each alternative
compromises the quality of the tour. Therefore we will rest this tour in 2016
and next aim to run it in 2017.

We here are obviously very disappointed to have to rest such a
popular tour, but it really is in 'circumstances beyond our control'.

Dubbed by the media as the world's worst team, the Bhutan's
national football team recently secured victory over Sri Lanka in the first
qualifying round of the 2016 World Cup.

Why, you might ask, is this news on the Bird Holidays website?

The national team manager is none other than Hishey Tshering, avid
birder, and known to our Bhutan clients as our ground agent in this beautiful
country. How he manages to run a ground agents, whilst managing the national
football team is anyone's guess.

Having won the first leg away in Sri Lanka 1 - 0, Bhutan's
government declared a national holiday so that everyone could watch the home
tie. They won 2 - 1, and are through to the next round of qualifiers. Perhaps
England can look forward to playing Bhutan in Russia in 2018 !

Our guides have just sent us this photo of a Spanish Lynx caught
on a camera trap.

This lynx is a heavily pregnant female, well-known to the
researchers on the private estate where we visit during our tour.

You can see that she was out hunting in the afternoon (14.57pm),
in an area where over 300 rabbits have just been released.

Rabbits have been suffering from myxomatosis in the Lynx's core
range in Spain. So rabbits are provided to prevent the cats from wandering
about and getting run-over; the biggest danger to them.

Camera traps are placed all over the area to ensure they dont go
missing and they are seen regularly. There is plenty of food for them and now
with the patter of tiny paws on the way, we are hopeful for good views later in
the year.

This year, our tour to this beautiful area was one our best ever,
with excellent feedback. Thank you to all the clients on that trip, especially
John T who encouragingly said "you undersell this tour, it is absolutely
fabulous!". It is really nice for us to hear such remarks.

Once again, Birdfair was a fantastic
success for us. It is always lovely to see a few familiar (we won't say
old) faces as well as getting to know people who we have only spoken to
on the phone. Many thanks to everyone who came to see us, and also to
those who entered our free 'Spot the Owl' competition.

The Brown Fish Owl was hiding in
square 8N,

and the winners were:-

Friday - John Flood from Ilkley

Saturday - Jackie Aldridge from
Northwich

Sunday - Brian Webster from Alava,
Spain

John Flood receives his canvas print
of a Blood Pheasant, taken by Phil Palmer on this year's Bhutan trip.

By a lovely coincidence, John was
actually present when the Blood Pheasant was photographed!

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper
has reached a small conservation milestone just as we announce the dates of
our 2015 tour.

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force estimates that as many as 80-90% of
hunters in the Bay of Martaban, Myanmar (the most important wintering site
in the world for Spoon-billed Sandpiper) have now signed agreements to stop
hunting.

Donations from our groups and several other partners have allowed them to
surrender their trapping equipment in return for help to start an
alternative livelihood.

Our friend Egor in Russia
reports that the breeding population seems to have stabilised this summer
and that many birds have laid replacement clutches for those taken for the
head-starting project. Adults reared in captivity by WWT staff there have
been seen back in Siberia, proving that this initiative can work.

On our Myanmar trip in
February 2015, we will once again be looking for birds marked by coloured
flags as part of the on-going survey work. While also using the ex-hunters
as guides.

Together
with consultants ArCona , Bird Holidays started an initiative to get birders
to donate to money to end wader hunting. We are hoping other tour companies
can also do the same now it can be shown to be working.

A nice new hotel has just
been built at Mount Victoria. It is nice to see the infrastructure improving
all the time and we are hopeful that tourism will help to encourage
conservation of this important bird-rich site.

It is with pleasure that we can say
that we will be revisiting Bhutan in 2015. Our tour this time will be
shorter and so cheaper to cater for those that cannot get the time off
to do our 3 week tour. With the visa process now much simpler, it has
never been easier to visit. We avoid the need to use tents as our guide
has built a nice new lodge, so we remain one of the few birding
companies that does not camp here.

We will still concentrate on finding
the Tragopans, Himalayan Monals, Blood Pheasants and Ibisbills, so no
need to worry about a lack of quality. It will be possible to visit the
Tiger's Nest Monastery too and in fact if the weather is good and you
sit on the right side of the plane, you can also see Everest!

Our run of good luck meant that we
saw the White-bellied Heron. We have never failed with this species,
which is probably the World's rarest

Following the success of our Latvia tour this year, we will
again include Lithuania as part of the itinerary in 2015.

We popped over the
border to see some Ural Owls this year, but general birding there was
excellent too. With great views of displaying Roller, and superb views
of many species of woodpecker, it is set to become a firm favourite. At
Cape Kolka, four species of migrating harrier included a ghostly adult
Pallid. We found the second Iceland Gull for Latvia while watching
hundreds of Long-tailed Duck. Passage of migrants were diverse enough to
include skuas, divers and Caspian Terns, alongside orioles, swifts,
woodlarks, buntings and finches, all heading past us and out to sea.

As we stood on the
beach with raptors overhead, groups of Yellow Wagtails would drop at our
feet. Hawfinches attempted to cross the sea, followed by doves, crows,
magpies: all things we don't think of as migrants. Many turned back, but
wagtails, swallows and Sparrowhawks had no such worries. They just kept
plodding northwards until a gull took a dislike to them. The odd
'sprawk' would go into reverse gear whenever a particular Common Gull
saw it. Afraid of being knocked into the Baltic, the hawk would turn
tail and run for land, only to try again later.

All of the Baltic
States are superb, and having been one of the first companies to
discover the delights of Estonia 15 years ago, we are so excited about
branching out into Latvia too. One of the nicest
aspects of the 2014 tour was that we had the place to ourselves. Nobody has discovered
Latvia yet and it is wonderful to have such a peaceful bird-filled
location away from the crowds.

I could rave about this
place for ages, but our clients will do that for us. I hope you can join
us in 2015....

Phil

--------------------------------------------------------------

TRIPS FOR LOCAL BIRD CLUBS

Every year we take members of local bird clubs, such as RSPB
member groups, on individually tailored tours usually from their regional
airports. We have now run many trips all over Europe and further afield for
groups of 7 to 28 people, and have become experienced in making these holidays
successful for all concerned. This April we took the local Leeds RSPB group for
the 7th year running. Having previously visited Tarifa, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Greece, Morocco and Estonia we set off for the famous Coto Donana, then the
plains of the Alentejo. We have had great feedback, and here are a few
photographs taken by Mark Newsome on the trip.

Following our tour to
Burma (Myanmar) where we had great views of Spoon-billed Sandpiper, we
were a little worried that we were the only people to see them in the
gulf of Martaban this year.

When we left, our local
guide Lay Win, went to search elsewhere and located two flagged birds.
One was a bird hatched and ringed last year at the southern Chukotka
breeding site by Pavel Tomkovich. Pavel works with Nikolai, Ygor and
Nastia who form the nucleus of the Russian team that regularly monitor
SbS here. This is where I helped to find nests for the head-starting
project at Slimbridge.

But the most amazing
news is that Lay Win's second bird was an old one trapped several years
ago in Northern Chukotka. This was the core breeding area for the
species until the main site at Belyaka was deserted. So it appears that
this bird has relocated to another area a rare event. So where does he
spend the summer now and how many friends does he have up there? Another
mystery to solve and well done Lay Win.......Phil Palmer

Back in October 2013, The Sound
Approach team announced some unprecedented and exciting news.... the
discovery of a new owl alive and well in the Al Hajar mountains of
northern Oman. Sound recordings and some stunning photographs were
published on the internet and in the journal Dutch Birding. Knowing I
was to return to the country in early 2014 I made tentative plans to
look for the bird myself. In the meantime I learned that an old friend
of mine, Mike Watson, was organising an exploratory tour for Birdquest -
their mission was to find the owl at the type locality as described in
the Dutch Birding article.

So in early February I met up
with Mike in the Jabal Al Hajar which rise steeply from the coastal
plain. In brief, I was fortunate enough to find a new site for the bird,
where a least one pair was nesting. The first nest ever to be found. The
Sound Approach team flew out soon afterwards and are collecting more information. More reports and
photographs will be added here when I return from my current trip
to Morocco.... John McLoughlin.

In January, we passed the milestone of 500
tours led by the current Bird Holidays leaders. Not counting those trips led
by part-time leaders in the early days of Bird Holidays, Roger's trip to
South India was our 500th. To celebrate the occasion, tour participants
Chris and Ian Brookes created this lovely card and presented it to Roger on
the tour. A collage of images they have taken on our tours. Thanks Chris and
Ian.

we are pleased to announce that we will be
running a 'Birds of Paradise' tour to Papua New Guinea in 2015.

It has been a long time in the planning but
after a very successful recce, we are confident that this will be
extremely popular.

With good accommodation, food and wildlife,
this destination will avoid the 'extreme birding' tag that has put
people off travelling to the most untamed island on the planet. In fact
during our recce, we failed to see any of the promised mosquitoes during
our time in the hills. Only after persistent searching in the lowlands
did we finally catch up with a couple and even there, we dipped out on
the leeches that we had been assured would make life difficult. This
meant that we had to spend all of our time looking at Birds of paradise,
Owlet Nightjars, Frogmouths and Kookaburas....oh dear!

We have just returned from another fantastic Birdfair. The weather was great and
we all had a lovely, if rather hectic, weekend. Our stand was incredibly busy,
and we must apologise to anyone who visited us and did not get to chat.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the free prize draw held each day. The three
lucky winners of the White-throated Robin canvas print by Ian Smith are:-

Phil visited Latvia in May 2013 to make
final arrangements for our new tour. You can see his photographs
HERE

*******************************************************

Protect Our Raptors

Our friend and customer, John Topham brought
the following e-petition to our attention. If you care about the
protection of birds of prey in the uplands of Britain, and are concerned
about their persecution by gamekeepers, please consider signing this
petition.

If anyone tried to phone the office before 10am this
morning (30th January) they will have had no reply. Sorry!

The reason - no less than 144 Waxwings have taken up
residence in Mawcroft Close, Yeadon and this morning I just could not
drag myself away from them. While Andy is in Ethiopia, Phil is in
Myanmar, John is in Oman and Roger is in South India, I am left here
holding the fort. But I could not help letting the office look after
itself for once, with these beauties in my garden.

The birds first appeared on Saturday 26th January, when a
flock of 18 made it on to our RSPB Garden Bird Count (allowing for a bit
of 'Fergie time' after the hour was up!). Since then they have increased
daily, and 166 is our maximum count. There are probably many more
since it is almost impossible to keep track of them all.

We are proud to see that Phil’s work from his Siberian
expeditions has been used for a very special purpose. Supported by
BirdLife’s Preventing Extinction Programme, the conservation exhibition “Spoon-Billed
Sandpiper - life saved” was opened at the Chukotka Heritage Museum in
Anadyr, Siberia on 8th October. This is the first example in
Russia, where a whole exhibition has been devoted to a single species of
bird .

Phil’s photographs feature in the exhibition which displays
general information about the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and its flyway while
focusing on the Chukotka region. The exhibition will stay in Anadyr for 2
months before moving to Meinypyl’gyno for permanent display. Anadyr’s
schoolchildren will have organized visits and the exhibition featured on
local TV and Radio every day for 5 days! Central media in Moscow also
publicised this event.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper (SBS) is the fastest declining bird
species listed in the Russian Federation’s Red Data Book and is one of the
hundred most threatened birds in the world. The population is estimated to
be only 100 breeding pairs. Since 2000, a conservation program in Chukotka,
led by Evgeny Syroechkovskiy and currently developed further by BirdsRussia
has been working with BirdLife International, RSPB, WWT and a number of
other leading conservation organisations under the umbrella of the East
Asian – Australasian Flyway Partnership.

Phil has worked with Evgeny on three expeditions to Chukotka
and openly admits that they have been one of the greatest experiences in his
life, while being the most physically demanding. Entirely self-funded, Phil
has helped survey this remote Arctic region and is one of the few people in
the world to have found Spoon-billed Sandpiper nests – no mean feat! In
2012, he located eggs that were used as part of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Task Force’s head-starting project and others that were brought to
Slimbridge as part of WWT’s captive breeding program.

This exhibition is the largest SBS conservation awareness
action taken in the Chukotka region (and Russia?) so far and the first time
so much publicity has been given to birds. Interestingly, the fact that a
small bird is migrating so far to Southeast Asian countries was particularly
surprising to locals. Lots of important issues including the need to create
local protected areas in SBS’s breeding grounds were raised here for the
first time.

The need for future exhibitions to focus on other bird
conservation issues was highlighted and preliminary agreement about this was
reached with Anadyr’s key decision makers. This is only first step –
constant work is needed to make Chukotka citizens and decision makers proud
and aware of their unique natural heritage. Only then will serious regional
scale conservation actions follow.

The opening ceremony was attended by Roman Kopin the Governor
of Chukotka, all regional conservation officials, local Parliament
representatives, Indigenous People’s organizations and invited guests from
Anadyr. Representatives from Environmental Agencies in all Arctic countries
also participated in the opening of the exhibition as the Arctic Council
Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna Working Group (CAFF) formed in Anadyr
at the same time.

The exhibition covers the three main subjects:

1) Situation on the Chukotka breeding grounds with a review
of the results of conservation research and awareness work in the vicinity
of the village Meinypyl’gyno where the last remaining SBS are still
breeding.

2) Overview of migration highlighting the main threats
(habitat change and catching of birds by local people for food). As well as
the results of the work by SBS Task Force started in 2004.

3) Ways to save the species – two major international
projects "Captive breeding” and “Head Starting”.

The exhibition also presents numerous scientific articles
showing the scale of the birding world’s interest in SBS. This includes the
“SBS migration game” for children, a non-stop video (from Cornell’s Lab. and
WWT), PowerPoint presentation at touch-pad screens, drawings by artists (by
James McCalum, Jens Gregersen and E.Koblik) and the photographs (by Phil, B.
Scampion, I. Kaurov, and G. Vyn) taken from the expeditions.

SBS and East Asian Flyway conservation issues were also on
agenda of Arctic council CAFF meeting. During a simultaneous meeting, CAFF
members agreed to sign up to the Bonn convention. So East Asian migratory
birds will receive more attention in further conservation work.

TV crew and press at
the opening ceremony in Anadyr
one of the posters on display in the museum

A major success for the
work of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and Bird Holidays is proud to be its
species champion.

You can join the survey team to count Spoon-billed Sandpipers in
Myanmar
click here

At a Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force meeting in Norfolk at the
weekend, together with Christoph Zockler & Tom Noah from Germany, Phil was there
to discuss the work done so far this year to help Spoon-billed Sandpipers. Christoph reported that he had recently seen 106 adults at their
staging ground near Shanghai this autumn but this may be the entire adult world
population!!

Thankfully this is not a large decrease from the 2012 counts
giving hope that the rapid declines of recent years has ceased or at least stabilised. The birds
have now begun to move south towards Myanmar for the winter. It will be
interesting to see how many birds are counted there. At the same time a cheque
was presented to the Task Force by the Birdscapes Art Gallery. They then went on
to have a great days birding. As well as finding 8 Ring Ouzels among thousands
of thrushes, Tom was able to see a Barn Owl hunting. Even though Tom is a member
of the German Rarities Committee, he had never seen one in daylight. He remarked
that the UK is the only place in the world where Barn Owls hunt in the daytime
and we realised that despite seeing them in almost every country we visit, they
are truly nocturnal: who would have believed it?

As a supporter of South GeorgiaHabitat Restoration, we thought that you might like to read their latest
update regarding their rat eradication programme. I know that the many people
that travelled with us to this wonderful island want to help as much as they
can. You can now view the latest edition of the Newsletteron the SGHT website at:

At Bird Holidays, we are proud of the fact that one of our leaders was part of
the team that sss..sss.....surveyed Arctic Russia (yes it was
ccc....cc.....cold), to locate their nests this summer.

A team of Russian scientists visited known sites and located several nests while
Phil was despatched north of the main group and found two more. Being the proud
father of two clutches, he was not surprised to hear that his 'offspring' stole
the limelight and were airlifted to the UK without him...aaargh!

What didn't make the news, was the fact that Phil was left for quite a while
longer than the Spoonies before he managed to return to our office here in
Leeds. All is now well and some of you may have seen him at the Bird Fair last
week.

You may have read that Phil was with Christoph Zockler (head of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force) at
Meinypil’gyno
in Chukotka. Together they will be leading our Spoon-billed Sandpiper tour to
Myanmar (Burma) in January where they hope to count the wintering birds there.
Christoph was there earlier in 2012 to asses on-going conservation work and
logistics for our tour. With luck, they may see some of the chicks that were
ringed in Chukotka this summer and there are still places left on this tour if
you are interested. See http://www.birdholidays.co.uk/Myanmar.birdwatching.holiday.htm

Nordmann's Greenshank is another wader that has been identified as being in a
similar predicament to SbS and there may be as few as 500 left in the wild now,
so they also hope to locate some of these birds too.

A full report (with photographs) has been supplied by Christoph and the task
force, giving an updated account of their work in 2012 (see
SBS_TF_newsbulletin_no8_august2012.pdf) to save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
from extinction.

We have just returned from another fantastic Birdfair. The weather was great and
we all had a lovely, if rather hectic, weekend. Our stand was incredibly busy,
and we must apologise to anyone who visited us and did not get to chat.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the free prize draw held each day. The three
lucky winners of the Pacific Diver canvas print by Phil Palmer are:-

One of the
most important projects in the world for seabirds is being undertaken by the
South Georgia Heritage Trust (a small UK charity) on the remote island of South
Georgia in Antarctica, where introduced rodents have devastated globally
important seabird populations by eating millions of chicks and eggs -
particularly those of prions and petrels. Funds are urgently needed to help
clear the island of these rodents, with an expected increase in seabird numbers
by well over 100 million birds! The South Georgia Pipit could also be
saved from extinction. You can help by sponsoring a hectare for just £90 /
USD$145. See
www.sght.org/Habitat-Restoration for more
information.

Phil is in far eastern Siberia, assisting the joint Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Recovery Team / WWT project to save the critically endangered Spoon-billed
Sandpiper. Today he sent us a note about what he's been up to....

Opening the zip of a tent to
taste droplets of freezing fog is not something you want on a birding holiday!
But I have returned to Chukotka at the request of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
recovery team to help locate the few remaining pairs of this critically
endangered bird. Having only found one bird in two Russian expeditions in 2004
and 2009, I was more hopeful this time as I was allowed to go to Meinypil’gyno:
the last remaining breeding colony for the species.

This time the SbS recovery team
had been joined by WWT staff that were to take eggs for a captive breeding
programme as well as making safe any wild chicks. This is termed head starting.
We locate nests for WWT staff who take the eggs to keep safe from predators,
replacing them with dummies. When incubated, we put one or two eggs back into a
nest as they start to hatch. Spoonies never rear more than 2 chicks, so the 2 or
3 surplus eggs/chicks are reared in a hastily erected aviary and released onto
the tundra just prior to migration.

So the species is being helped
in 3 different ways here by not putting all its eggs in one basket so-to-speak.

During my time here (and yes I
am still here!), I have found many other arctic birds like Spectacled, King and
Steller’s Eider. Flocks of 800+ Harlequin Duck, Gyr Falcon and quite a few
rarities. These include Bullfinch (1st or 2nd for Chukotka
maybe?), Eye-browed Thrush and Brambling (2nd for Meinypil’gyno
region), Common Sandpiper’s nest (1st for Meinypil’gyno region) and
Mallard. The latter was a tick for Pavel T; the great Russian wader specialist
who has been studying Arctic birds here for decades!

I have also ripped both pairs
of trousers, worn out two pairs of gloves and an Arctic-proof rain coat, worn
holes in all socks, and even managed to wear out a pair of new wellies by hiking
across 20-30km of tundra each day. And I am paying to do this too! The
satisfying payback was to find 2 SbS nests and see these amazing birds again.

Numbers of SbS females are
perhaps a shade lower than last year, but this has yet to be confirmed when we
finish our survey. Christoph and his team have been working very hard to prevent
hunting in Myanmar, so the population decline has slowed considerably. Even so,
it is estimated that less than 120 adults remain in the wild so the slightest
mishap could tip SbS over the edge.

This is the last year of taking
eggs for captive breeding and my impression is that it is going to be a poor
breeding season for all species here anyway. So this impact may not be as great
as it appears. Many wildfowl and waders have failed to lay eggs or have been
predated. Luckily many arctic birds like SbS are long-lived, so they would
perhaps only hope for one good year in every 10 to maintain the population.
Hunting on the wintering grounds and development along their migration routes
has tipped SbS close to extinction, so to do nothing was not an option.

I have been fortunate to see
SbS on migration during our China bird tours and next year’s Myanmar tour will
allow us to search for ringed birds from Meinypil’gyno. It is all quite
exciting, but tinged with sadness when the eggs you have worked so hard to
locate are taken.

Our first Southeast China tour in December was a great success. Building on our
with experience in finding wild Giant Pandas we were able to locate some of the
rarest birds in the world. Poyang Hu held the world population of Siberian
Cranes and we saw over a thousand on one lake! Bird numbers were incredible,
flocks of a thousand-strong Avocet, 10,000 Spotted Redshank, hundreds of
Spoonbills and a thousand Oriental White Storks take some beating.

Wuyishan provided us with a party of 13 Scaly Mergansers as well as a big flock
of Mandarin Duck. They were so smart that we revisited them the following
morning for a second helping. Brown Dipper, Little Forktail and some crazy Bay
Woodpeckers were further highlights before finishing off with Pied Falconets in
the centre of a small village.

On the coast we logged four Black-faced Spoonbills and eight Spoon-billed
Sandpipers to round off our hit-list of special birds as well as Relict and
Saunder's Gulls.

Our tour ended in Beijing where grey-headed woodpecker and Azure-winged Magpies
were garden birds. The Great Wall and Summer Palace provided some memorable
scenes as well as birds.

Christoph Zockler has just sent us news that 103 adult
Spoon-billed Sandpipers have just been counted at a high tide roost in China.

This is excellent news and although it may conceivably represent
the world breeding population, it is likely that there are more out there. If we
add the youngsters from last year's breeding season that will still be in
Myanmar and this year's juveniles that will move south later, it makes for a
more optimistic view than recent trends have indicated.

Observers are watching for this star bird on the Chinese during
the migration season and our visit in December will allow us to check one of the
estuaries there. Following this, our Myanmar tour in January will enable us to
count wintering birds. (3 places left).

Young birds from Russia are still in quarantine and it is hoped
that they will be settled into their new home at Slimbridge by Christmas. More
updates to follow when we get them.

Phil's tour to Madagascar went very well with Couas and
Ground-rollers galore! Ring-tailed Lemurs were seen among the 19 lemur species
recorded! This included the recently discovered Golden-brown Mouse Lemur. A
lesser Hedgehog Tenrec was another mammalian highlight while the elusive
Madagascar Serpent Eagle, White-browed Owl, Crab Plover and Meller's Duck were
birdy highlights but the group fell for the dancing Running Coua that performed
so admirably in the Spiny Forest near Ifaty.

Chameleons, Giraffe Weevils and Thorn Spiders, together with the
eggs of the extinct Elephant Bird were other distractions in this incredible,
but fragile country.

We now have one place left on our 2012 tour due to a cancellation
with 2 trips there already full!!!. Places for 2013 are also filling fast.

The sun was quite intensive at the Betsiboka Delta as the gang searched for
Bernier's teal, Madagascar Sacred Ibis & Humblot's Heron. So Captain Phil was
forced to resort to a Michael Palin-style knotted handkerchief head dress. (Blackmail...ooops!
sorry I mean Photo by Ben Wilson)

In mid September we took seven members of BOG to southern
Spain, visiting the east side of the Guadalquivir Delta and Tarifa. We had a
great time, with masses of migrants streaming through. As well as hundreds of
Honey Buzzards, Booted Eagles, Black Kite and Short-toed Eagles we saw smaller
numbers of Black Storks, Montague's Harriers and Lesser Kestrels. During the
trip we also saw Little Swift, White-headed Duck and Marbled Duck. Surprises
came in the form of a winter plumaged Marsh Sandpiper and this Royal Tern, a
rarity from West Africa with fewer than 50 European records!

We have just returned from another fantastic Birdfair. The weather was great and
we all had a lovely, if rather hectic, weekend. Our stand was incredibly busy,
and we must apologise to anyone who visited us and did not get to chat.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the free prize draw held each day. By
pure coincidence, all the winners were from the north-east of England. The three
lucky winners of the signed Ivory Gull canvas print by Phil Palmer are:-

Friday - Donald Martin from Billingham

Saturday - Michael Hall from Chathill, Northumberland

Sunday - Peter Cunningham from Beverley, East
Yorkshire

Thomas Willoughby drawing the Friday winner.

We asked people to choose their favourite Bird
Holidays brochure cover from the last 12 years, all displayed on our stand. The
winning brochure cover, not surprisingly, was the 2012 Ivory Gull. Here are the
top three:-

1st - 2012, Ivory Gull, 17% of the votes

2nd - 2005, Shoebill, 15% of the votes

3rd - 2011, Little Green Bee-eater, 12% of the votes

The Friday winner with his Ivory Gull print. Left to right. Phil Palmer, Donald
Martin and Paul Willoughby.

Michael Hall (above), winner of the Saturday draw

The Sunday winner. Left to right Paul Willoughby, Marge Cunningham and Peter
Cunningham. Incredibly, Paul used to meet up with Peter and Marge when they were
birding at Flamborough in the 1990's. It's a small world...

Loads of smart pictures from our recent visit
can be seen by clicking
HERE

This Hudsonian Godwit was one of two ringed birds that
Phil was able get pictures of. Being able to read the letters AX on the left leg
allowed him to forward information to researchers at Churchill who sent details
of its movements.

A brief synopsis of the average migration of a Churchill
godwit would include: -

Three weeks staging on the western coast of James Bay before a
non-stop flight from James Bay to Buenos Aires, Argentina; a flight of 10,000 km
and 7 days.

A month staging along the northern Argentine coast before
moving south to Tierra del Fuego where they spend five months wintering.

A return non-stop flight northward to southern Texas in early
May (another flight of ~10,000 km) before hop scotching through the Great Plains
with an average of 3 stops along the way.

And, finally a return to Churchill in late May.....phew

This adult Glaucous-winged Gull was a fabulous find. As Phil was on his
way back to the hotel, he decided to check out some large gulls hoping for a
Thayer's Gull. To his surprise, he saw the bird above. He didn't realise how
rare it was here as they are common in Alaska and he had even seen one in the
UK!!! Some people were sceptical about the record, but Rhonda Reid, a local
birder was with him and together with a set of superb pictures there was no
doubt that the bird had been there - albeit briefly.

This reply came back from the local birders:- The Glaucous-winged Gull was a
great find Phil. The only documented Glaucous –winged Gulls in the province were
collected at Churchill: a second-year female on June 1, 1964 and an adult female
on June 24th, 1965.

This means that this is the first sight record for Churchill & the second for
Manitoba.

A new tour for May 2012 will take customers to Belarus in search of Azure Tits,
Great Grey Owls and Terek Sandpipers among many other East European delights.
Gabor, our local guide who some of you may know from previous trips, has sent us
these images of this gorgeous bird that he took this May. More information
will be in our brochure, but we are happy to provisionally put your name down
for this trip to avoid disappointment later.

This spring, Phil visited Canada. He
toured the taiga belt & prairies of southern Manitoba in search or the many
brightly coloured American wood warblers and sparrows that were
singing in readiness to breed. Loons wailed from every lake, Sharp-tailed
Grouse danced on the prairies and flocks of migrating wildfowl homed in on
the many ponds and marshes. In addition, he wanted to look at the prospects
of finding large mammals like bears and bison, as well as some smaller ones
like beaver, chipmunk and muscrat - he found them all! Heading north towards
the end of the tree-line, he reached the town Churchill on the shores
of Hudson Bay.

Famous for polar bears that walk
into town, he turned his attention to the birds and couldn't have been more
pleased. Thousands of Lapland Buntings attracted harriers and falcons, the
displaying shorebirds were watchful for Bald eagles and the Spruce Grouse
only broke cover when they were confident that the Golden Eagles were gone.
Feeders attracted grosbeaks, finches and sparrows and melting ice in the
river brought Sabine's and Bonaparte's Gulls closer to large flocks of
cranes and Ross's Geese.

The whole place was amazing and we
are currently planning a tour there as soon as we can. As a taster of the
incredible views we had, the photo above shows one of thousands of
White-crowned Sparrows that Phil saw. This species hit the headlines in
2008 when one turned up at Cley in Norfolk. The bird stayed for weeks
allowing hundreds of birdwatchers to enjoy it, while raising thousands of
pounds for the local church. A picture of the sparrow appeared in one corner
of a new stained-glass window in recognition of the birds contribution to
the restoration fund.

John and Phil have just returned from yet another successful tour of Estonia, a
place we have been visiting annually for well over a decade now.

The weather was cool when we arrived meaning that Long-tailed Ducks remained and
we were lucky enough to find four Steller's Eider with them!

The thousands of wintering Barnacle Geese were on the move, with some Bean,
Whitefront and Pinkfeet with them. A run of rarity finds included Pallid Harrier
and Black Kite, while some Rough-legged Buzzards had lingered to be joined by
Montagu's Harriers and Honey Buzzards fresh in and displaying. Slavonian Grebes
swam by our hotel watched over by squabbling White-tailed Eagles and migrants
included Wryneck, Bluethroat and Waxwing. We found superb Nutcrackers,
Capercaillie, Black Grouse and Black Woodpeckers in the woods before moving
inland.

As the temperature rose, Golden Orioles, Rosefinches, River and Blyth's Reed
Warblers began to arrive; joining Thrush Nightingales, Little Gulls and
Red-necked Grebes. Rarities here included White-winged Black Terns and nesting
Citrine Wagtails. Evening forays provided Spotted Crakes and a series of
wonderful mammal sightings. These included several Wild Boar, Elk and Beaver,
while a Pine Marten was possibly our best find?

This tour has been full every time we have run it and of course we will be
returning there in 2012.

While the boys are away missing all of this wonderful sunny spring weather,
maybe we should fill you in with some news from our tours this year and maybe
news of others?

"I don't think we can find a glass big enough" said one client on our January
Antarctica Tour! (photo by Chrys Mellor)

Such has been our success this year, that most trips have been oversubscribed
and several tours for 2012 are already provisionally full, with the odd one in
2013, the same! We have already discussed plans for new tours in 2012 and it
looks like there will be exciting new tours to Belize with Paul, Chile with John
and Ethiopia with Andy. Phil will have a spring tour to Belarus, probably the
only place where you can expect to see the much desired Azure Tit in Europe? The
country has wonderful Northern European species like Great Snipe and Great Grey
Owl, as well as good populations of European Bison and other big mammals. So
watch this space.

Our leaders always do a risk assessment before going birding,
but being pecked from behind was not considered! (photo by Chrys Mellor)

Our Nepal in March tour ran very well with Cutia, Ibisbill and Wallcreeper all
seen very well, along with Indian Rhino and Jungle Cat. The big surprise was a
smart White-tailed Blue Robin that fed right by the hotel in Kathmandu.

The China Tour ran particularly smoothly with the group seeing two Giant
Pandas in the wild!!!! Phil had been nervous that the walk to the research
station may be hard work for some, but it passed very quickly and rather
tirelessly as they saw birds like Nutcracker, Red-flanked Bluetail and Little
Forktail on the way. We were told that one of our clients of 79 years was the
oldest visitor to see a wild panda here! An extension was arranged to enjoy
other sights and Godlewski's Bunting was seen right beside the Great Wall of
China and a vagrant Japanese Waxwing joined a flock of its commoner cousins at
the Emperors Palace. There will also be chance to enjoy the historical sights of
China after next year's panda tour.

John found loads of Steller's Eider in Estonia and has just called the office to
say that he managed Terek Sandpiper in Greece yet again. Paul is in Turkey and
Andy is probably now in some forest in the Czech Republic so it is quiet here in
Yeadon.

Fire-tailed Myzornis photographed on Andy's Bhutan tour.

Christoph reports that his projects in Myanmar are paying dividends with regard
to Spoon-billed Sandpiper conservation. His schemes have reduced hunting of
Spoon-billed Sandpipers by 50% this winter in their most important winter
stronghold. We know this is not enough but it is a step in the right direction.
Another bird guide has been trained there and he was so excited when he found
two Spoon-billed Sandpipers in breeding plumage this spring. He says that this
is the first time birds have been observed in this plumage in Myanmar and was so
proud of himself. We hope to continue supporting
this scheme and now with Birdlife International board, we hope that it is not
to late to save this critically endangered bird. Our next tour there is planned
for January 17th 2012, so if this marvellous wader is on your wish list, please
join Phil & Christoph.

The Antarctica tour early in the year went like clockwork again. Our new ship
was almost too luxurious for birders but we coped with the fine cuisine and the
views of the bow piped directly into our cabins via a video-link!

Killer Whales seemed to be everywhere on this trip with the Bird Holidays gang
finding all of them as others rushed to reach the deck each time. The endemic
Cobb's Wren was seen well on Falkland and some smart Antarctic Petrels joined
the many Snow Petrels that swooped over the deck this year.

(all photos by Chrys Mellor)

For those customers that have travelled with Troels (left photo), we are
delighted to let you know that he plans to marry this year and so we send our
congratulations. Sadly he will be settling down now and changing his job. So
will not be a leader on the polar cruises.

For those of you that cannot imagine what it is like to 'meet' a Wandering
Albatross, the picture of 'Little' Chrys stood next to one in Grytviken museum
will show you how awesome these birds really are. Museum staff have even had to
bend its wings to get it into the room!!!!.

The Orca on the right was photographed by Chrys and shows the yellow
algae-stained skin that some of the cetaceans in the region possess.

While we are on the subject of cruises & polar regions, we will be running our
trip to Spitsbergen again in 2012 so it is perhaps time to start planning before
cabins fill up?.

A new shaded shelter built for
birdwatchers to observe waders. Part of Christoph's work with the locals.

Christoph Zockler has sent us a brief
report from Myanmar regarding this year’s Spoon-billed Sandpiper survey results.

His work with the local villagers’, who
in the past had been trapping the birds, is vital to prevent the extinction of
this enigmatic bird. A storm had damaged part of the village where the birds
winter, but with funding from the Lighthouse foundation, the people have built a
brand new viewing facility complete with a toilet (a big deal in this very poor
area). We are keen to assist with eco-tourism here and various initiatives are
already in the pipeline to help.

This winter’s surveys showed that 22
Spoon-billed Sandpipers were wintering in the bay. This may not sound like a lot
but the most optimistic of estimates say that there are now no more than 100
pairs left in the world and possibly much less! Birdlife International are
taking things very seriously and things are moving, albeit slowly. The situation
is now so critical for this mysterious bird that they are even considering
taking some birds into captivity.

Phil and Christoph will be leading our
tour to Myanmar in January 2012. This will enable us to count the birds next
year, while enjoying the many other special birds of the region. We hope that
you can join us as our contribution to the local economy both financially and
through raising awareness is vital to the Spoon-billed Sandpiper’s future.

If you would like to take part in our
tour to see some super birds and enjoy the strange sight of a wader with a
spoon, then please get in touch as soon as possible.

This is a new toilet under construction by local villagers. Specially built for
birders visiting the site.

There is an option to extend the 2012 Myanmar tour, with a visit to Mount
Victoria with Phil & Christoph. This will be dependent on client numbers.

Phew!!! spring is not even here and
things are busy in the office. Roger has been to Kerala, John is in Yucatan and
Andy has just returned from Ethiopia.

Phil has just returned from yet another great trip to the White
Continent (Antarctica), and is doing some slide shows at the moment, while Paul
is licking and sticking envelopes to get the spring newsletter out.

There are some places left on a few tours coming up soon and most
of Phil's group travelling to see Pandas in China have opted to stay a couple of
nights in Beijing to see the cultural sites.

As well as the Great Wall, they intend to visit Tiananmen
Square, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, the Ming Tomb and the Summer
Palace. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then you consider adding this to a
wonderful Chinese tour?

By the way, it will be warm then as Phil's recce was in snowy
February 2010.....brrrrrr!

Bird Holidays are proud to support the
work of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper recovery Group. You can now help by
counting Spoon-billed Sandpipers on our tours to China and Myanmar. At the
same time you are doing something positive to prevent the hunting of birds
on their wintering grounds.

We will be announcing new tours to China and Myanmar in our
2011 Brochure launched at the end of August .

The enigmatic Spoon-billed Sandpiper
is unique among shorebirds, famous for its bizarre-shaped bill. The
challenges of seeing one are rising as it plunges towards extinction. It is
estimated that only 120–220 pairs remain.

Phil has taken part in two
expeditions to the bird’s summer breeding grounds on the Russian Chukotskiy
peninsula and northern Kamchatka with Christoph Zöckler and
Evgeny Syroechkovskiy of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Recovery Group. This place has been inaccessible to all but a few
ornithologists.

Despite occasional sightings across a
vast range from India, Malaysia and Japan, the main wintering sites were
unknown until recently. Christoph and Evgeny have led the
way in unravelling the mysteries surrounding this bird. They show
that the worst threat is to the over wintering birds and those threats
can be reduced (C. Zöckler et al. Wader Study Group Bull. 117, 1–8;
2010).

With no apparent sign of habitat
degradation at the breeding site, Christoph organised expeditions to search
for the Spoon-billed Sandpipers wintering area. Having had success in Myanmar during
trips in 2007, 2008 and 2009, in January 2010, they found an estimated half of the
global over wintering population in the Bay of Martaban. The team also identified
one bird that they had tagged with a leg flag on the breeding grounds in
2003.

Analysis of carbon and nitrogen
isotopes from the few, winter-grown, feathers collected when the bird was
tagged showed that this individual was in the centre of the densest data
cluster, implying that it was in the heart of the wintering area.

Christoph found that local hunters
use mist nets to catch birds for food. About.30,000 shorebirds are
killed annually in this bay alone from an estimated 150,000 waders. Most of
the 26 hunters from 15 villages interviewed were familiar with Spoon-billed
Sandpipers and admitted that they regularly catch them. There were only five full-time professional hunters and their preferred targets are much
larger species like Whimbrel. The Spoon-billed Sandpiper corpses were often
discarded!

During the earlier trips, Christoph's
team
had found a good number of Spoon-billed Sandpipers in a smaller neighbouring bay. Christoph
offered incentives to the villagers to conserve the birds and this worked
very well.

A small fund was set up to provide
alternative food for the families and village elders ensured that there was
no hunting. Their surveys this year proved that it was working as numbers of
Spoon-billed Sandpipers there remained stable for the first time.

It is hoped that this scheme can
be extended to Martaban and they are working towards this. Without this intervention, the
Spoon-billed Sandpiper could become extinct within 10–20 years. Thankfully,
through
persistent investigation and willingness to engage with local people, we may
be able to pull it back from the brink.

This tale illustrates how conservationists
must engage with local people for it to be successful. At last there is hope
for this bird if small changes are made.

Spoon-billed Sandpipers
wintering in China 2010 - Phil Palmer

Bird
Holidays Spoon-billed Sandpiper Tours

Phil and Christoph met with the
rest of the Bird Holidays team and found that there was actually something
practical that we could do. We will
be supporting the local villagers and the Spoon-billed Sandpipers in the most
practical way we can.

We will be taking over the
management of the Spoon-billed
Sandpiper Recovery Group’s trips to Myanmar. It is important that the birds
are counted each winter and that the locals continue not to hunt
Spoon-billed Sandpipers. A contribution is made to prevent hunting and
tourism there is increasing awareness of the star bird that visits them each
year.

We have organised
special birding tours to this superb area that include time to see and count
the Spoon-billed Sandpipers in one bay as well as getting to grips with some
other superb birds (see our brochure page for prices and details ready at
the end of August 2010).

At the same time we
will maintain the link with the villagers and provide a donation to their
fund.

Christoph is a
professional tour
leader and will lead our first Spoon-billed Sandpiper trip in 2011.

You can meet
Christoph at the 2010 Bird Fair where he will be at the Spoon-billed
Sandpiper Recovery Group's stand

Paul recently completed a recce to the lovely
island of Madeira. Due to his special interest in seabirds he had been hoping to
visit for many years, and got the chance in early June. He was concerned that
last winter's storms might have caused lasting problems, but there was nothing
to worry about. He had a lovely time with his family, seeing many exciting
seabirds as well as walking the famous levadas. He is planning a tour there for
2011. Click here for a selection of photographs that might whet your appetite.

Pico de Arieiro is the only place in the world where the Zino's Petrel nests. A visit
at dusk would be worthwhile just for the magnificent sunsets, above a carpet of
cloud.

Phew, what a hectic time. All of our tours have been running and many of
them are over subscribed! We seem to be fortunate whenever there are problems in
the travel business as nothing seems to dent our enthusiasm. Our leaders were
affected by the volcanic ash situation with most of them abroad (fortunately not
with groups), however no trips were cancelled. The only inconvenience for
customers was on the Bhutan tour, where the group had to endure Andy's
company for an unscheduled tour in India on the way home.

Roger suffered a short delay in Spain while on a recce and John was late back
from a recce to some new sites in Estonia. Both made it back in time to lead
their tour to Turkey. Phil was just a day late returning from Ascension Island
but utilised his time well, by watching Sooty Terns courting and Green Turtles
laying eggs.

In Kerala, Roger notched up Ceylon Bay Owl yet again to top the list of endemics
found on this popular trip. Oman rarities included Amur Falcon and Crested Honey
Buzzard, but topping the list was the False Killer Whales seen hunting dolphins.
Staying with cetaceans, Phil's Antarctica season provided good sightings of Blue
Whale but True's and Sowerby's Beaked Whales were serious fare for any
sea-mammal enthusiast. The seabirds are mentioned in his brief write-up below
and all sea crossings were incredibly calm until reaching Tristan. Strong winds
here made landing impossible, but the Gough zodiac cruise allowed the endemic
Moorhen and Bunting to be located.

Smyrna Kingfisher and Red-fronted Serin were highlights in Turkey with additions
like Cinereous Bunting and Rufous Bushchat enjoyed by all. Andy's Bhutan tour
was a pheasant fest with Blood Pheasant and Satyr Tragopan showing off to
everyone's glee. His Tiger tour found three adults and three cubs during an
excellent week in India. John's Costa Rica tour managed so many birds that it is
difficult to highlight them all but the smart photos he showed us of Boat-billed
Heron were mouth watering.

Paul is currently in the Coto Donana and Andy leaves for the Czech Republic this
weekend. Phil, Roger and Paul will head to Greece next week where they will be
taking York RSPB on a private tour. We still have a few last minute places
available on our Poland, Ecuador, Okavango and Bulgaria tours, but there are few
gaps in the calendar before the autumn season. Here we have spaces for Gambia,
Taiwan, Morocco and Florida with one space left on the popular Namibia trip.

All the expected seabirds were seen well, including
Snow, and Antarctic Petrels, topped by all the monster albatrosses:
White-capped, Tristan, Snowy, Yellow-nosed, Black-browed, Grey-headed, Sooty
and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses. The endemic seabirds included Ascension
Island Frigatebird and landbirds included the St Helena Wirebird. Throw in a
million or two penguins shearwaters, storm-petrels, noddies, boobies and
tropicbirds, and you can begin to see why this was a special journey.

We celebrated the last trip of the Professor
Molchanov in true style by locating a Juan Fernandez Petrel, probably the
first authenticated record in the Atlantic Ocean and an amazing sequence of
Trindade Petrel sightings. Just one sighting of this threatened bird would
have been incredible but several birds were involved. Some hung around the
ship and the total count may have exceeded double figures.

Juan Fernandez Petrel(Phil Palmer)
Trindade Petrel (Phil Palmer)

In 2011, our tour takes in the Falkland Islands,
South Georgia and Antarctica. We still have a few places left. We can also
include an extension to the Iguazú Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border.
Please phone for details.

CHINA TOUR

Phil has just
returned from a trip to China where he was finalising plans for a new tour
in 2011.

Having been to China
many years ago, he was pleasantly surprised to see how far things had
progressed with regard to the logistics of travelling around. Improvements
to roads, accommodation and food, together with some superb birds and
animals, has led him to arrange two new tours.

Seeing a genuinely wild Giant Panda has been almost
impossible until recently. Phil visited a remote mountainous area where
there is the highest density of pandas. Phil expected a hard time as he had
chosen to visit during the cold snowy part of the year, but saw two pandas
on his first day!!!!!

After this awesome start, he settled down to help locals
tackle the difficulties of bird location and identification. Between them
they forged a great friendship and found some superb birds. Several were
ticks for his guides and finding out that their greatest desire was to see a
Wallcreeper, he used his previous experience to ensure they got one as
reward for showing him a big black and white bear.

Seeing a wild panda requires a lot of luck
and Phil has always carried that in buckets everywhere he has visited.
Following his time spent watching a smart male resting in a tree (above
photo), he saw some blue-faced Golden Monkeys, various deer, Flying
Squirrels with a 1m wingspan and Takin; a massive ivory-coloured forest
buffalo.

Primarily there for the birds, Phil realised that
clients would want to see a panda given the chance but would struggle to
tackle the terrain. When birding the wide trails he found many footprints,
scent posts and droppings every day so knew that pandas could be viewed from
the trails.

Sure enough, prints in the snow one morning revealed that
one had walked right past his bedroom window in the night. The following day
the cook found one crossing the path near the buildings and Phil found a
female feeding just 5m from the path the next morning. This proved that it
was possible to undertake a birding trip that provides us with a
better than average chance of seeing a wild panda. For those people prepared
to follow the guides deep into the forest, this chance also increases. So we
intend to run this tour in April 2011.

The Chinese Crested Ibis has just been brought back
from the brink of extinction, but can easily be seen on our proposed tour.

Moving off from the mountains, Phil travelled east towards
the sea through mountains containing the rare Scaly-sided Merganser, past
lakes holding thousands of cranes, including the Siberian White Crane, then
finally on the coast he located at least four Spoon-billed Sandpipers and
some Black-faced Spoonbills. All these are star billing for a tour that will
run in November 2011.

As 2009 drew to a close, our last tours of the year produced some great birds.
Roger took a full tour to Taiwan where the stunning pheasants were supported by
a cast of Black-faced Spoonbills and some mouth watering megas that rarely
reach the UK: Siberian Rubythroat, White's and Eye-browed Thrushes and
Red-flanked Bluetail.

The final trip of the year was Phil's highly acclaimed Namibia tour. Spotted
cats stole the show with Cheetah and three Leopard sightings heading the mammal
list in Etosha. They were bolstered by too many Lions to mention, gangs of
Hyena, Porcupines and both species of Rhino.

White Rhino has recently been re-introduced to Etosha and Phil's new safari
guide, Raymond was shocked when Phil took him to see one! Raymond knows the park
very well having worked there for some years, but had never seen a White Rhino.
Phil has found them on four recent trips and when he told Ray that he had an
appointment with one, Ray was shocked to find the animal exactly where Phil had
said it would be. Ray had travelled the same road many times but was never even
hopeful that he could ever see one!

The Namibia tour provided a few other surprises for this seasoned safari guide
as Ray often works with some serious African twitchers. He was shocked that we
did not have to do the 4am starts, long drives or sub-standard accommodation to
see the endemics. He said it was one of his most relaxing trips where we saw all
the goodies and still had time to look at animals and some Welwitschia plants
too.

Jameson's Red Rock Rabbit is barely known about and the number of photographs of
them taken in the wild can be counted on one hand. Again, Phil produced the
goods with a Spotted eagle Owl and a Namaqua Dwarf Adder in the same half hour's
pre-breakfast desert amble that logged three of these crazy bunnies.

One of the few photographs ever taken of Jameson's Red Rock Rabbit.
This bunny lives in the rocky granite kopjes. Its oversized bushy black tail is
obvious in this photograph. (Phil Palmer).

For those that remember our previous guide Charles, the good news is that having
learned many of Phil's birding secrets, he has taken on the managerial role at
one of the Namibia's newest luxury lodges. Our leaders are happy to assist local
birders in their careers and it was nice that Charles went out of his way to
visit the group in Etosha. We wish him well in his new post.

It goes without saying that the desired birds on the trip were all found. Herero
Chat, Gray's Lark and Dune Lark are the hardest of endemics to locate and
several of each showed well, but the excitement of birds gathered to mob a
Pearl-spotted Owlet at Namutoni will be hard to beat. The picture at the top of
the page shows this diminutive hunter with four unhappy neighbours near it. The
two shrikes are actually bigger than the owl!

At least four kinds of shrike led over 17 species of birds that came to offer
support to the angry mob in a short period of time.

Christmas was a time to reflect on 2009 and a newsletter will be winging its way
to you in the post as soon as it returns from the printers. All five of us
gathered for our traditional Christmas Dinner near the office and congratulated
each other on a successful year.

2010 already looks very busy with most of the tours in the first half of the
year already full. Many of you are now signing up for 2011 to avoid
disappointment and some of these are full too! Don't worry if you are unable to
make plans this far ahead as we may be running two trips to some destinations,
but as places are limited, we would urge you to start thinking about it. There
is still space on our two Namibia trips in 2010. The first in August
includes the famous Okavango Delta and is the perfect compliment to the standard
tour that many of you rate as one of your finest. Both bird and animal species
are very different, with little overlap in regard to sightings.

At the moment, John is in the Camargue and a phone call yesterday told how his
merry band had already seen some Wallcreepers. Roger is in Kerala and Andy has
just departed to Northern India. Paul and Phil are manning the phones if you
want to chat about trips. This month's Birdwatch magazine contains the tale
about our Siberian Stonechat mentioned lower down this news page and John has
his regular piece about the North-East's rare birds. The snow failed to
bring any Waxwings to our gardens this year, but a Raven regularly commutes over
Phil's garden; amazing for a Nottinghamshire locality. Some RSPB slide shows had
to be cancelled for safety reasons, but we still made it to Southend, Lichfield,
Long-Eaton and Oxford. Others in the coming days include Bedford, Wakefield,
Coventry and Warwick.

This Leopard was caught drinking at the Halali waterhole for just 5
minutes. (Phil Palmer).

We are asking customers to consider signing a
petition on the website for the Prime Minister of the UK.

If it has any success it will see the mandatory
installation of Swift and Bat nest places within UK buildings, whether new or
restored. This I hope you will agree would be a very good thing. Even if it does
not succeed, someone in the Government is going to notice it, and maybe think
about it.

The Conservative Shadow Environment Minister was
briefed on much the same issue too, so the word is getting about in the
"Corridors of Power" about the need to make and keep places for Swifts and Bats.
If we can keep up the pressure, then one day we will see results!

On 17th December, this striking-looking male
Siberian Stonechat was found at Bevercotes in North Nottinghamshire, close to
Phil's home. The strange bird was first seen by Bob Stevens in a heavy shower.
He thought it was very much like a Whinchat but Bob felt sure it was a
Stonechat. Aware of various identification pitfalls involved with Stonechat
races and unfamiliarity with foreign birds, Bob asked Phil to take a look.

Aware of a whole range of identification pitfalls
and recent reports of Continental birds showing pale rumps, Phil quickly
confirmed the identification as Nottinghamshire's first Siberian Stonechat and
one of less that a handful of winter records in the UK. As a result, this
plumage is rarely seen and depicted in field guides.

In snow showers, horizontal at times, the bird
rarely kept still, but showed a white rump bordered with some buff. The
completely unstreaked rump ruled out the British race of which two birds were
present on site for comparison. Together with black axillaries, the pallid
colour and a tail that lacked any white, it was narrowed down to belonging to
the race S. t. maura.

The amount of black on the face appears to be
unusual at this time of year, and the contrasting white throat even more so.

It is understandable that some would think it was
a Whinchat on first impression and it is also reminiscent of
Fuerteventura
Chat, but the rump and tail pattern quickly eliminate these species.
All-in-all, it is a beautiful bird and may remain for the winter if it
survives the pre-Christmas cold spell and snow.

NOTE - Due to late
availability on some 2010 Antarctic cruises, we are pleased to announce that we
can offer a considerable discount for some cruises. Please phone for details as
prices fluctuate with currency changes.

Our Autumn programme is in full swing, Roger and Phil have just completed their
reports & edited pictures from two tours to Hungary. As reported last month,
their targets included Imperial Eagle, Saker Falcon, almost all of the European
Woodpeckers, Dotterel and an awesome gathering of 41,000 cranes. This was
achieved without a hitch among some of the most wonderful scenery. Despite being
there in October, they were basking in more than 80 degrees of heat, but this
didn't stop them finding wintering birds like the globally threatened Lesser
White-fronted Goose, Smew and White-tailed Eagles. The wonderful colours of the
Zemplen Hills were slightly cooler and clothed in the reds and golds of autumn.
We are planning to return in 2011 with a bird tour and a repeat of our
successful bat tour. Please register an interest at our office to avoid
disappointment. For a look at some superb photographs from this tour click
HERE.

Paul has returned from his Brazilian tour, where the rare Brazilian Merganser
was seen along with superb Maned Wolf and Anteater. Without allowing the dust to
settle he has taken a group to Goa while Andy is in the Gambia. Good moves
considering the damp dark weather here in Yeadon! Phil's pictures from trips to
Brazil and Ecuador have graced two new photographic guides to the area,
published by New Holland. Both are worth a look if are considering going or want
to reminisce about what birds you saw there.

Roger is getting ready to lead his second tour to Taiwan and Phil his umpteenth
visit to Namibia. Both tours were oversubscribed so are repeated in 2010. Phil
and John work with Birdguides, the country's leading bird information website.
John has just written an article for their webzine about the identification of
Green and Greenish Warblers.

There are only a few places left on our spring 2010 trips, so check availability
before sending your booking forms in. Traditionally we expect a rush of bookings
just after Christmas but it is already too late for some trips. There is still
room on several Autumn 2010 trips.

There are cabins left on our Antarctica tour, but flights are filling fast. If
you want to visit the famous Białowieża Forest or Biebrza Marshes in Poland,
please let us know soon as hotels are filling. If you have never seen a Moose
(European Elk), then this is undoubtedly the best place to go. We saw several
grazing near some Aquatic Warblers last year as a pair of cranes flew over. As
it had been a good waxwing winter, there were several seen fly-catching; a crazy
sight in May. It is also a good place to get to grips with a smart male
Bluethroat, most of the European Woodpeckers and Great Snipe, while the rare
European Bison is a possibility too. Click
HERE to see photos from this year's
trip.

Many of you will know occasional Bird Holidays co-leader and great friend Mark Newsome. Mark
hit the headlines (and even appeared on the BBC's News at Ten!), when he
recently identified an Eastern Crowned Warbler in Co Durham, the first British
record of this Siberian bird. Hundreds of twitchers travelled to see the bird on
23rd and 24th October 2009. If you know Mark (most recently he was with us in N
Greece and Goa) and would like a giggle, check-out his appearance on the News at
Ten by clicking on the following link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8323930.stm

A quick city tour of Budapest en-route to the airport closed a couple of wonderful
Hungary tours.

October News

Autumn is in full swing and our trips have been full and busy, finding some
great birds.

Roger took a group from Leeds RSPB to Hungary that was followed by Phil and a
second group the week after. Amazing views were enjoyed of Imperial and
White-tailed Eagles, hundreds of Dotterel scattered by a Saker and a fine
selection of European woodpeckers. Rarities found involved Black-winged
Pratincole and Lesser White-fronted Geese with American shorebirds like Pectoral
Sandpiper and American Golden Plover. A humorous evening in a winery and a quick
city tour of Budapest rounded off these excellent trips.

Paul is currently in Brazil leading a new tour after a great trip to Romania
where Terek Sandpiper was a good find. In Tarifa, Paul's group saw Ruppell's
Vulture as well as the more numerous raptors crossing the Straits of Gibraltar.

Phil had led our first bat tour to Hungary in August and that was a real
success. Our experts used high-tech equipment to pick up invisible hunters
before mist netting some for close-up views. The large daytime roosts impressed
everyone as they unlike anything experienced in the UK. We also notched up two
species of dormouse and an impressive butterfly list as well as Imperial Eagle,
Saker and some rare woodpeckers. Our next bat tour will be in 2011 and already
we have some bookings, so please don't miss this pioneering opportunity.

Andy and John continued to man the office preparing for their next trips while
Roger took Doncaster RSPB to Bulgaria in late August . They chalked up Masked
Shrike, Orphean Warbler and Pied Wheatear as well as spectacular numbers or
migrants like the 14,000+ White Storks!

Roger is now preparing for Taiwan again and we have just got news of a discount
on our Antarctica cruise in 2010. We have yet to finalise exact details of the
cost, so please phone if you are interested as the ship is almost full.

King Penguins meet reindeer on South Georgia - taken on our 2009 tour.

LATE AVAILABILITY

The cruises to the Southern Oceans in early 2010 are filling fast. There are
just a few cabins left so if you are thinking of joining one of these trips,
please get in touch soon as we have extended our booking discount date.

Due to a change in winter flight schedules we are now offering
new departure airports for our Camargue in Winter trip. The tour is centred in
Arles just north of the Camargue and offers a great opportunity to see wintering
Wallcreeper, Alpine Accentors, Citril Finch and Snowfinch.

In addition we have excellent sites close to our hotel
where we can watch both Bonelli's Eagle and Eagle Owl. The Camargue itself holds
large numbers of wintering wildfowl as well as the resident specialities such as
Greater Flamingo and Purple Gallinule. Moustached Warblers can be easier to see
at this time of year and Penduline Tits may also put on a show.

Our tour has a one centre base at a small hotel on the outskirts
of the ancient city of Arles. There will also be time to explore the both the
city and its stunning amphitheatre which is undergoing a splendid restoration.

The tour will run from Manchester and Gatwick airports to
Marseille giving you the opportunity to fly from whichever airport which is the
most convenient. The tour will run from January 16th to the 23rd.

We would like to apologise to all the people that tried to
chat to us and found us too busy. This year’s British Birdwatching Fair was
a great success but absolutely manic on Friday and Saturday with large
numbers of friends stopping to say hello to us.

Phil, Andy and John were present all three days and were very
pleased to meet some of our local guides and ground agents.

Our Taiwanese friends made a fuss of us as we were their best
clients in 2008 and 2009. Apparently other companies cancelled trips there
while we ran full.

It appears that some companies only ran one out of five
advertised tours when the recession hit, while the opposite was true for
Bird Holidays. It seems that our unbroken record of NEVER having surcharged
a tour has repaid dividends and so we must send a big thank you for
supporting us. Bracing ourselves for a quiet time at the fair, we found
that you are keener than ever to join us on a trip and the last 2 places on
our Brazil tour were snapped up on the first morning!

Only 2 weeks have passed since our brochure was mailed out,
but five tours in 2010 are already full with others are filling quickly.
Please don’t leave booking too late to avoid disappointment.

We still have places on
one tour in 2009 - Goa. Please call if you are interested.

Spoon-billed
Sandpiper research

You may have seen that the Spoon-billed Sandpiper research
group attended the Bird Fair. Phil is an active member having assisted in
two long expeditions to the Russian Arctic with them. This is a small group of concerned individuals that have funded their own visits
and research. Recently Birdlife International and the RSPB have
become more active as the bird's plight has been more obvious. Some
supporters have been found to help pay for a Russian team to protect the
birds on the last significant breeding site.

On
Friday, the
opportunity for an ad-hoc conference was grabbed with Phil joining
representatives from Japan, Korea, Burma, Germany, Russia and Denmark as
well as Birdlife International and RSPB.

This year’s surveys have confirmed most of the reasons for
the bird’s decline, but raised other questions. Some action can now be taken
immediately, but at present, this may only slow the rate of decline.
Following the meeting, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper recovery team are to draw
up an action plan.

It is intended that the team will re-visit Burma this winter
which is now the major wintering ground for the species. It is hoped that
meetings with locals will reduce the by-catch of birds trapped in the
estuaries. It is possible to donate towards this work, so please contact
Phil if that is something you wish to consider.

On a lighter note, Christoph Zöckler chaired this important
international gathering where it was priceless to see Phil’s 10 year old son
Max, proudly sat beside Dad with his chest puffed out like a Ruff as he was
introduced. Prof Evgeny Syroechkovski presented him with some home-made jam
made from dandelions gathered during this summer’s expedition to Kamchatka
by his wife Lena.

Phil, Lena, Evgeny and Alex Hellquist from Sweden, were the
only people to find a Spoon-billed sandpiper during the expedition this
summer. Clearly action is needed urgently.

These photographs were taken on a
special expedition to locate the breeding grounds of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Listed as critically endangered with a
population estimate of 450 - 1000 birds, Phil has been fortunate enough to
assist Russian researchers on their expeditions in the past. The future
for this bird looks extremely bleak as it is affected on its breeding and
wintering grounds as well as on migration.

Breeding habitat is very specific
and always close to the coast. In recent years surveys have covered almost every
possible location and it has become evident that even these low estimates are
over optimistic. It is likely that there are less than 150 birds left now. For
example, the sites surveyed this year were estimated to hold between 5 - 50
pairs. In reality only one territorial bird was found: - the one in these
photographs.

It did not appear to have a mate as Phil
monitored the area for 3 days!

We would like to do more to help this
wonderful bird but funding is very limited. The Spoon-billed Sandpiper winters
mainly in Myanmar (Burma). A country where few people are prepared to fund
anything because of the government's record on human rights.

Aleutian Tern eggs are collected by
locals in Kamchatka. During this season at least 95% of all nesting birds
monitored were robbed. This species whose wintering grounds are still unknown,
is listed as being of "Least Concern" but clearly such losses will have a
massive impact on this little-studied bird.

The
Slender-billed Curlew is Europe and the Western Palearctic's rarest bird,
listed as critically endangered, many consider it already extinct. Our
friend Tim Cleeves from the RSPB has the role of Slender-billed Curlew
Database and Fieldwork Coordinator and is currently assisting with the final
push to find and save the bird.

A team of researchers are waiting for a phone call from
anywhere in the world if someone can find a bird. His fieldworkers will fly
there at a moments notice to try and trap the bird and put a transmitter on
it. It is hoped that this will lead them to the breeding grounds so that a
concentrated effort can be made to secure their safety.

Bird Holidays leaders have joined forces with Tim and the
RSPB to help look for them on our tours. Our trips to Morocco, Greece,
Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Oman and Bulgaria are all on the old
fly-ways of Slender-billed Curlews. So a solitary bird could be found on any
of our tours there.

Luckily Bird Holidays leaders are a few of the people with
first-hand experience of living Slender-billed Curlews and so we have an
advantage over other fieldworkers. As a result, we will check any Curlews
and Whimbrels found on our tours for Slender-bills. We will then contact Tim
to get his team ready.

Gough Island, in the South Atlantic, holds one of the world's most important
seabird breeding colonies with more than a million albatross, shearwater and
petrels. Their existence is threatened by descendants of the British House
Mouse, which are eating chicks alive.

The mice attack at night, singly or in groups, gnawing into the chicks'
bodies when they sit on the nest, and eventually kill them through blood loss or
destruction of vital organs. It is that some of the 22 species of birds that
breed on Gough may eventually be driven to extinction. The number of fledging
Tristan Albatross chicks has decreased rapidly and it is now five times lower
than it should be. The mice are also affecting the endemic Gough Bunting, one of
the world’s largest finches.

There are fears that the UK Government is not placing enough of its financial
resources into its Overseas Territory to save and enhance wildlife for which we
have a clear responsibility. The petition below draws attention to a British
problem that can and should be solved by the British Government, and in
particular the threat

Over the years our series of Brazilian Tours have been extremely successful
with Bird Holidays pioneering successful Jaguar watching in the Pantanal.

Building on this success as others follow in our trail, we
have created a fascinating new tour to show you Giant
Anteaters and Maned Wolves as well as some superb birds. Our October 2009 trip was full within days of our
brochure being published last year, but we have just had two people cancel due to ill
health. To grab these last places, please contact us for more details, or if you would like to book.
click here to read more...

*************************

new HUNGARY tour flights

Our Hungary tour this October departs from Manchester but we
have had requests from some customers to fly from Heathrow.

We have managed to find corresponding flights for them and so
a Heathrow departure is also possible for new bookings.

We realise that the continual fluctuation in flight costs and
fuel surcharges is often a point of frustration to some people, so we will
continue to include the cost of the flight in all our tours rather than provide
a guess. Remember that you are free to make your own travel arrangements if you
wish.

Although our tours have a departure airport listed,
please allow us to arrange flights from the airport of your preference.

July is usually a quiet month as we make final costings and
corrections for our forthcoming brochure and 2010 tour season. As a result Paul
has been beavering away in front of the computer, while the rest of us attended
the Great Yorkshire Show for our 4th year there.

Roger is currently in Ecuador, no doubt showing the group his
Cock-of-the-Rock (ooh-er, that sounds wrong?). He had just returned from
Spitsbergen where he went to check out a new ship for the 2010 tour there. He
found that it exceeded our expectations and his most unusual sighting was to
witness a case of infanticide. It is commonly known that male Lions are known to
be a threat to unrelated cubs, but Roger saw an adult Polar Bear eating a cub.
Witnessing this is extremely rare and not a pleasant sight, but part of the
natural fight for survival in a rapidly melting landscape. Long-tailed Skua and
Grey Phalarope sightings were higher than normal and a stunning drake King Eider
was a real highlight.

Andy has departed for the Okavango Delta, Caprivi Strip and
Victoria Falls. This is our first official trip there for some time with a few
changes to the routing. Phil has spent a lot of time in this northern part of
Namibia and Botswana and says that it is very different to usual Namibia tour.
Over the years this has been one of our most popular tours and ranked by many as
their favourite. Our 2009 tour is already close to full and concentrates on the
Namib Desert and Skeleton Coast, while the game in Etosha is also very different
to that of the Okavango. Both tours complement and contrast each other well. It
is the perfect time to visit Namibia if you have considered returning this great
country.

John and Phil have manned the office and are girding their
loins for the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water in August. As usual, we
shall be in Marquee number 1 and would love to chat about any aspect of our
trips.

In a few days, Phil will lead a pioneering Bats and Birds
Tour to Hungary, concentrating on large roost sites in cave systems that
stretch into Slovakia. While not something we would run each year, we have been
pleasantly surprised by the response having gained privileged permission to
enter some strictly protected sites. Between bat encounters, he is confident of
seeing many of the special birds of the region too like Saker and Imperial
Eagle.

Hungary has proved popular for some time and we follow this
trip with two bird tours there in autumn. One of these is a privately arranged
tour for Leeds RSPB.

Phil is missing smoked salmon and raw fish eggs after his
adventure in the Russian wilderness that is northern Kamchatka. He says that the
wild berries that he picked from tundra bushes work very well with chocolate.
This time he found a little outpost beside a statue of Lenin where he cleaned
out their stock of chocolate. This meant that the long treks across tundra bogs
were kinder then the last expedition where he lost two stone in weight!....at
least he doesn't have to watch out for Grizzly Bears in Yeadon

We see that one of his photographs has just appeared in this
months Birdwatch magazine. During our Atlantic Odyssey (Cape to Cape), Phil
identified a heron flying over the ship as an adult Purple Heron. At the time,
the vessel was near Gough Island which is in the middle of the South Atlantic
and the next port of call after Antarctica and South Georgia. The closest point
to their ship where the Purple Heron could have originated was Cape Town,
2000miles away. Far from being weak and tired, the bird had bypassed Tristan da
Cunha and continued flying strongly over Phil's ship towards South America!

Our Tour of Namibia is justifiably one of the most
popular. If we take the maximum group size of 10 clients, we use this
large vehicle specially adapted for birders. You can see that this has extra
height for better views while travelling and birding.

As well as plenty of window seats, there are 2 big
roof-top openings for use in Etosha where it is forbidden to leave a vehicle
when big game is nearby.

The massive windows can open allowing excellent
photographic opportunities and easy use of a telescope with plenty of room for
your tripod!

We don't think there is a better safari vehicle for
birding than this.

The Swallows have all arrived above our office, but spring is far from over. Roger
has just returned from leading a tour to the Algarve and John from Morocco. John
then joined Paul in Turkey, while Phil goes to Poland this weekend. Soon Roger
will be off to Spitsbergen in preparation for our 2010 tour there. Please
contact him if you are interested as places are limited.

Andy is manning the office having just completed his pheasant and crane quest to
Bhutan in readiness for a tour next year. Hopefully, he will find time to load
some mouth-watering photos on the photopage when not dealing with invoices and
enquiries.

Our great adventure in the Southern Oceans was a success. Phil managed to bring
everyone home safely last week having taken them from Cape Horn to the Cape of
Good Hope - surely he has some of Captain Cook's blood in him?
Congratulations to Jim & Liz Lidgate who celebrated their anniversary on the
ship. Birding Tierra del Fuego before crossing Drake's Passage to Antarctica,
the intrepid band pushed through the ice to reach South Orkney, then South
Georgia. Phil's group continued to Gough and Tristan da Cunha before landing in
Cape Town where they saw the last of eight penguin species before flying home.
Amazing sightings combined a million King Penguins and countless albatrosses
with 500 Dusky Dolphins and a bunch of Hammerhead Sharks!

Perhaps the most shocking of all was the sight of a Purple Heron flying strongly
past Gough; actually closer to South America than Africa!!! Not satisfied with
being the first record for the Tristan archipelago, it may have reached
South Georgia to be listed as part of Antarctica?

Once again, we are grateful to all those that travel with us and we hope to
include some photos from our 2009 Antarctic cruises soon.

12 February 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin,
with 24 November 2009 marking 150 years since of the publication of his book
On The Origin Of Species. To celebrate Bird Holidays have organised a
Galapagos Tour.

Our previous tours have provided intimate views of Darwin's finches, Marine
Iguanas and the Giant Tortoises as well as so many other birds and animals.
Using one of the finest tourist yachts, we leave large crowds and overpowering
tourist cruise ships to enjoy the antics of Galapagos Penguins, Waved Albatross
and Flightless Cormorants in peace. A short break between landings could allow
one to swim with seals or penguins!!

We have no personally led tours to Spitsbergen planned for 2009, but a close
relationship with our agents and Phil's work as an expedition staff member means
that we can offer considerable discounts for those that would like to travel
independently.

We will of course be heading south in the winter of 2009/2010 to visit
Antarctica and South Georgia again on our Cape to Cape tour. If you would like
us to arrange a tour to visit the region or even join a quest to see Emperor
Penguin, we are able to offer great discounts on many cruises. As ships fill and
prices are constantly changing, please get in touch for the best possible deal.

This Short-eared Owl was seen on the way to work!....... Phil Palmer
Click Here for the
full story.

FEBRUARY update.

Paul returned from Madagascar having completed a recce for our
inaugural tour in 2010 (we are already taking names of interested customers). He
then promptly boarded a ship with his group bound for the Falklands, South
Georgia and
Antarctica. This is one of two tours that we are running to the region this
spring as interest in this awesome region has risen annually. At the time of
writing, Paul is still there but returns for 5 days before taking a group to Panama.

Roger continues his run of over-subscribed trips by leading the Oman tour before
flying on to Nepal. Because of their popularity, both tours have a list of
clients wishing to go in 2010. There are only a few places left despite us not
even confirming dates & prices! Let us no quickly if you fancy joining Roger
next year.

Andy and John are in the Yucatan, again with a full complement (who said there
was a financial crisis?). On their return, they will not have much time to
unpack before heading to Costa Rica and Morocco.

That leaves Phil manning the office while preparing to go to Antarctica. Excited
about the epic journey from Cape Horn to Cape of Good Hope, he has been signed
up as a full member of the expedition staff to advise on ornithological matters.
This will be his first visit to Tristan da Cunha, one of the most remote places
on earth. He will also be working there in 2010 and there are still places left.

In the meantime a Red Kite was seen over our Yeadon office in mid February with
Common Buzzard a few days later. Waxwings were in both Andy and Paul's gardens
this month but Phil spent a considerable time attending meetings to advise the
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and local police about how to deal with an
upsurge in wildlife crime in North Nottinghamshire recently.

In addition both Phil and Paul have some work in print this month. Phil has
photographs in a brand new photographic guide to African birds by Ertel Rainer
and a publication about biomes published for students in the USA. Paul has
contributed an article about the finding of a Blackpoll Warbler at Flamborough
in a book about Rare Birds in the UK written by Russell Slack,

For details of Russell's book or to order at a pre-publication discount
Click Here

Bird Holidays staff like to help with conservation issues and support the
RSPB and Wildlife Trusts.

30% of the world's carbon is locked in the northern peatlands so we would like
to draw your attention to the Wildlife Trusts web page that informs you about
where you can buy peat-free products in the UK.
Click Here

To find out about Wild and Free, The Wildlife Trusts’ own brand,
100% recycled, multipurpose compost and soil improver, and to find out which
Wildlife Trusts stock it, contact:
info@staffs-wildlife.org.uk or phone 01 889 880 100.

We are delighted to welcome John
McLoughlin as a principal tour guide. His first tour
will be in early 2009.John has the highest credentials.
He has led and co-led a number of tours for us over the last 12 years. After
graduating from Leeds University he worked on many conservation projects,
including the first census of Thailand's critically endangered Gurney's Pitta.
More recently he has worked closer to home on upland birds in Northern England.
This includes population monitoring of the threatened Hen Harrier, Black Grouse
and Twite.You may also have come across John
in his role of managing the Denby Dale arm of In Focus, the binocular and
telescope specialists. He has worked there since the shop opened in 1993. In
addition, he has a keen interest in bird identification issues. John served on
the British Birds Rarities Committee between 1996 and 2006.

Living in Denby Dale, John is close
enough to Leeds to work in our office when not away leading trips. He lives
there with his wife, Dawn, and their three young sons. There’s no basis to the
rumour that he’s taking up full-time tour leading to get some peace and quiet!
We are sure that he will quickly fit into the routine here at Bird Holidays, and
in no time will become a fully established part of our team.

Did you know that we have organised private tours for RSPB Members Groups

In 2207/8, we ran trips for York, Doncaster & Leeds.

Our tour leaders have also given up their time in assisting
conservation groups.

Most recently in 2007 we have been spotters on the RSPB
Bridlington Skua Pelagics as well as negotiating the acquisition of a massive new
reserve for the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. We were also called as
expert witnesses in the controversial proposal to install wind farms on
Humberside.